Let’s take our Bibles together and turn to the Book of Hebrews. We are continuing our series today, “Christ Supreme in All Things.” And we come today to a new section of Hebrews. We come to a new argument in this book. We come to a section that discusses Moses, that great Jewish leader of the OT. And what the author of this book is arguing here is that Moses was a good leader. Moses, in fact, was a great leader. The greatest of leaders in the OT. But Jesus is a new and better Moses. 

 You know when I was a kid, October was always my favorite month of the year. I loved October. The weather would change. I could spend lots of time outside. Football season was in the air. In fact, October was the great convergence of my three favorite sports: baseball, basketball, and football. Baseball playoffs were underway. The NBA season was starting. And football was in full bloom. I loved October, and I still do. 

But lately there has been this thing hanging over the month of October that has made it less enjoyable. It’s this thing on a Tuesday in November called “Election Day.” And it seems like elections and electioneering just suck up all the oxygen in the room in October. 

Now I mention that because it might seem strange to us Gentiles that the author of Hebrews would need to speak about Jesus as better than Moses. But keep in mind that this author is writing to a group of Jewish Christians that (rightly!) held Moses in high regard. Moses led their people out of Egypt. Moses wrote the first five books of the OT. The three great Hebrews of the OT were Abraham, Moses, and David, and there’s an argument to be made that Moses was consider the greatest of those three. And so the author of Hebrews is quick to affirm that Moses was in fact a good man and a faithful leader. 

But those first century Christians needed to be reminder that Jesus is greater than Moses. The church must have had an overly elevate view of Moses. Or they were tempted to go back to a Moses-before-Jesus religion. And they needed a reminder that there’s only one Messiah, and his name isn’t Moses. And also we, as a mostly Gentile church this morning, need to be reminded that there’s only one Messiah. And he doesn’t caucus with the Republican or Democratic Party. 

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So let’s walk through this together. I’ll give you three ways that Jesus’s superiority to Moses is established by the author of Hebrews. Here’s the first. 

1) Jesus is superior to Moses in his fidelity (Heb 3:1-2)

The author of Hebrews says this in verse 1,

1 Therefore, holy brothers, 

Now I’ve just got to stop right there. Because that’s a powerful statement. Don’t move past that too fast. If you remember from last time, Jesus is our Big Brother. We are sons of God in light of what Jesus has done for us. And in light of what Jesus has done for us, we are seen as “holy” before the Lord. So it’s not without purpose that the author starts this new section in Hebrews with “Therefore, holy brothers.” 

By the way, the word for “holy” here is ἅγιος. We are ἅγιος because we have been sanctified (ἁγιάζω) by Christ Jesus. Not progressive sanctification, but positional sanctification. And our brotherhood is not just with Jesus; it’s also with one another. We are the brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus. And we are reckoned as holy, as saints, in Christ Jesus.  

And not only that, but we also “share in a heavenly calling.” 

1 Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, 

We as holy brothers, share a Heavenly Father. We have received a heavenly calling. And we have hope in a heavenly future. If you are a Christian, that’s you. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, this is you. That’s a pretty sweet identity statement. We are “holy brothers who share in a heavenly calling.” 

In light of that, look at the middle of verse 1. And by the way, this is the first direct command that this author gives in this entire book. In Greek, this is the imperative mood. Here’s the first imperative that he gives. 

consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, 

Let’s do that right now. Let’s consider Jesus. The word “consider” has the idea of “observing carefully” or “contemplating something.” And what are we contemplating? Well, we are contemplating Jesus, “the apostle and high priest of our confession.”  

Let’s look at each of those terms: 1) apostle and 2) high priest. An “apostle” is very simply a “sent one.” The Greek word ἀπόστολος is derived from the Greek verb ἀποστέλλω which means “to send someone out.” “In Jewish law, the apostolos (Greek) or shaliach (Aramaic) was a person acting with full authority for another in a business or legal transaction.” Jesus appointed and sent out his apostles. But according to Hebrews 3, Jesus was also a “sent one” (apostle) himself. 

So here’s a way to organize our understanding of apostleship. I’ll give you three categories. In the Bible, there are both little-a “apostles” and capital-A “apostles.” A little-a apostles is simply a missionary or “a sent one.” There are several examples of these throughout the NT. 

But we also have capital-A “Apostles” in the Bible as well. These were the appointed ones by Jesus. These were those who saw Christ, and taught Christ, and were trusted with the writing of Scripture by Christ: Peter, Paul, John, Matthew, etc. Those are the capital-A “Apostles.” And Paul argued extensively in Galatians for his identity as one of these capital-A “Apostles” (1:11-24; see also 2 Cor 11). 

But in this verse, we have a third category of “apostle.” In fact, this is the only place where Jesus is called an “apostle” in the Bible. So we have little-a apostles and capital-A apostles, and then you have what we might the “all caps APOSTLE,” namely Jesus Christ. And in what sense was Jesus an “apostle,” that is a “sent one”? Well, John doesn’t use the term “apostle” for Jesus, but he does talk repeatedly about Jesus being sent from God the Father (John 3:17, 34; 5:36, 38; 6:29, 57; 7:29; 8:42; 10:36; 11:42; 17:3; 20:21). For example John says in 1 John 4:14 that “the Father has sent [ἀποστέλλω] his Son to be the Savior of the world.” That’s an aspect of his incarnation. He was sent by God the Father to the earth to die and rise from the dead. He was sent to save our souls. That’s Jesus. “Consider him!” says the author of Hebrews. 

And as part of that “apostleship,” Jesus is our high priest as well. He’s the perfect high priest who offers his own blood on our behalf, not the blood of bulls and goats. And his sacrifice is the perfect sacrifice for our sins. I don’t want to say any more than that now, because we’re going to get into this more fully in chapters 4 and 5. 

But this is Jesus. He is the apostle and high priest of our confession. We confess him as the Sent One. We confess him as the Savior. We confess him as our Great High Priest. We confess him as our Messiah. 

And this Jesus, look at verse two, was faithful. This is the Jesus… 

2 who was faithful to him [God the Father] who appointed him [God the Son], just as Moses also was faithful in all God’s house. 

So here’s the first mention of Moses, and this is key. Moses was faithful. Moses was faithful in all God’s house, namely the household of faith that was Israel in the OT. 

Now here’s what this author is doing. He’s holding Moses up high as an exemplar. He is not disparaging him in any way. He’s saying, “Moses was faithful. Jesus was faithful. Jesus was faithful, just like Moses.” 

I think we as Protestants can sometimes be too quickly dismissive of Moses. And some of that goes back to Martin Luther who could be very derogatory of Moses and the Law of the OT. I love Martin Luther. He’s one of my heroes. I told some people last Wednesday night that I want to dress up like Luther for Halloween and go nail some stuff on other people’s houses. But Martin Luther was not inerrant. 

And he said this once about Moses. He said, “Leave Moses and his people together; they have had their day and do not pertain to me. I listen to that word which applies to me. We have the gospel… I now will not listen to Moses because he is given not to me but only to the Jews.” Luther had a tendency to pit law against gospel and Moses against Jesus. And this could lead at times to disparaging comments about Moses and the Jews. 

But I want to be clear about this. Luther may disparage Moses, but the author of Hebrews does not disparage Moses in any way. And he could have. He could have talked about the time that Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it (Num 20:11). He could have talked about how Moses told the Lord to send his brother Aaron instead of him (Exod 4:10-17). He could have talked about how Moses married a foreign woman and refused to circumcise their son, and almost got put to death for it (Exod 4:24-26). But he doesn’t mention any of that. All he says here is that Moses was faithful. Moses was a faithful “apostle” sent to God’s people. And also Moses was a faithful high priest, a Levite over the people. 

So the argument here isn’t that Moses was bad, and Jesus was good. The argument is Moses was a great leader. Moses was a great apostle and a noble high priest. But Jesus is just better. He’s just better. Moses was faithful. Jesus is even more faithful. In fact, Moses said himself, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” (Deut 18:15). Jesus told the Jews in his day, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (John 5:46). 

And by the way, Moses spoke that (Deut 18:15) from across the Jordan on the other side of the Promised Land. He said that knowing that he wouldn’t enter the Promised Land because of his disobedience to the Lord. Moses was faithful, but Moses failed. And where Moses fails, just like every other human leader fails, Jesus doesn’t fail. He is superior to Moses in fidelity to God and his people. 

Can I just talk applicationally for a moment? We have some elections coming up in a few weeks. I know there are some important issues in play for our country, and there are reasons that we as Christians need to be politically active and not pacifistic. But please refrain from speaking of politicians and political leaders as messiahs who are sent to save us from ourselves. I see that kind of rhetoric in both the Democratic and Republican party. And quite frankly it’s unbecoming of a Christian to talk that way. We know better than that. We seen our leaders, even our good leaders historically, exhibit flaws and foibles. There is only one Messiah in our world, and he’s not up for election. His name is Jesus, and he is superior in every way to the human leaders of this world, including the great Moses of the OT.

I heard Mark Dever give a talk once. Mark Dever is the pastor of a church in Washington D.C. It’s called Capitol Hill Baptist Church. And he said that one of his main objectives as a pastor is to blow up the utopian ideals of eager young political junkies who visit his church.       

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So Jesus is superior to Moses in his fidelity. He’s a better apostle. He’s a better High Priest. Write this down as #2 in your notes. 

2) Jesus is superior to Moses in his glory (Heb 3:3-4)

Verse 3 says this.

3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—

The word “glory” here is the Greek δόξα. We derive our word “doxology” from this Greek word. And there is a sense in which human beings have glory. We are the workmanship of God. We are the pinnacle of his creative work in Genesis 1. We are the imago dei, those creatures that are made in God’s image. And we have derivative glory. But when compared to the God of the Universe and his glory, human beings just aren’t that glorious. 

And when you think of Moses, Moses had more glory than most human beings. He said to the Lord in the OT, “Show me your glory” (Exod 33:18). And the amazing thing is the God actually obliges him. God hid Moses in the rock and allowed him to see the backside of God’s glory. And also Moses would meet with God face to face in the wilderness. And after meeting with God, Moses’s face shone with the glory of God (Exod 34:29-35). 

And yet Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. Not just because he spent time with God and his face shone with residual glory. But because Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. He radiates shekinah glory as Peter, James, and John found out at the mount of transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8). 

And here’s the comparison that Hebrews gives us.

3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. 

So here we have “glory” (δόξα). But we also have “honor” (τιμή). If you remember from Hebrews 2:9, Jesus is crowned with glory and honor. “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor [δόξα and τιμή] because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” And as part of Jesus’s glory and honor, he brings many sons to glory (2:10). And Jesus is accorded more glory than Moses, because Moses only led God’s house. Moses faithfully led the people of Israel. Moses faithfully served God’s house. But Moses was still part of that house. He didn’t build the house; he was just tasked with leading it. Jesus, on the other hand, was the builder of that house. Jesus built Israel. He was the architect of his OT people. 

We could speak in similar ways about the church in the NT world. I am a shepherd of this church. I’m a pastor. But 1 Peter 5 talks about the Chief shepherd, Jesus Christ. He’s the real leader of this church, he’s the founder. I’m just his steward. We as elders are under shepherds of the Chief Shepherd. And there’s a sense in which we, as shepherds, are also the sheep. Jesus is not part of the sheep; he’s the shepherd!  

Or let me change the metaphor for you. Jesus is the groom, and we are his bride. I am part of that designation, even as a pastor in this church. I’m part of the bride of Christ. Pastors are never described as the groom. Jesus is the groom. He’s not a member of the church. He’s not part of the bride. He doesn’t marry himself, that would be weird. He’s the bridegroom. We are the bride. 

And even beyond the metaphor, we can speak of Jesus as the originator of the church. He’s the author of our salvation. He’s the Creator of the entire world. His glory, as the God-man, is infinitely more glorious than us! He’s infinitely more glorious than Moses. He’s infinitely more glorious than David. He’s infinitely more glorious than Abraham. He’s infinitely glorious than all men and women in this world. 

4 (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) 

The first part of that statement was proverbial in the ancient world. “Every house is built by someone.” That’s correct. It was also proverbial in the ancient world that the builder is greater than what he builds. And the author of Hebrews says, “the builder of all things is God.” God created everything ex-nihilo. The materials that we use to build our homes come from God. The precious metals that go into our artwork come from God. The iron ore that we extract to build our skyscrapers comes from God. The very minds that we use to engineer and design and blueprint and architect great buildings come from God! He is the builder of all things. 

Can I just say that built into this argument in verse 4 is a defense of the deity of Christ. Jesus is God. If you didn’t get that beat into your head enough in Hebrews 1, here’s another reinforcement of that in 3:4. 

Now some people may wonder, why did the author of Hebrews start with Jesus is better than angels and then move to Jesus is better than Moses? Wouldn’t it make more sense to start with Jesus is better than Moses and then move to Jesus is better than angels? Well believe it or not, there was a stream of thought in the first century Jewish world that actually saw Moses as superior to angels. And if that mindset had impacted the audience of this book, then it makes sense that the author of Hebrews would start with angels and then move to Moses. He is systematically moving his people through a series of arguments where “Christ is Supreme in All Things.” 

And it’s not that angels are bad. Angels are great. God has a beautiful and wonderful purpose for angels. And it’s not that Moses is bad. There’s nothing negative stated about Moses in this text. Moses is great. But angels are inferior to Christ. And Moses is inferior to Christ. And it’s not that politicians or the political process in America is intrinsically evil. I love to vote. I love democracy. I agree with Winston Churchill, Democracy is the worst form of government in the world, except for all the rest. But politicians and political parties are inferior to Christ Jesus. 

All human beings are inferior to Christ. Because Christ is the God of the Universe. He’s the second person of the Trinity. He created all things. If you don’t get that, you don’t get Christianity. 

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Here’s a final point the author makes. Write this down as #3. 

3) Jesus is superior to Moses in his authority (Heb 3:5-6)

The author says in verse 5, 

5 Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 

This is an allusion to Numbers 12:7, where God calls Moses a servant and faithful in his house.

6 but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. 

Everyone see the difference in prepositions here? Moses was faithful in all God’s house. That’s impressive. But Christ is faithful over God’s house. That’s markedly different. That’s more impressive! 

Also notice the terminology. Moses was faithful as a servant. Christ is faithful as a son. Everyone see that? Who’s greater in a household—the servant or the son?

Speaking of the superiority of the Son over the servant Moses, Al Mohler says the following: “Moses was a man; Christ is the God-man. Moses was a sinner judged for his sin; sinless Christ is judged for the sins of his people. Moses turned the water of the Nile into blood; Christ changes water into wine. Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage to Egypt but failed to lead them into the land of promise; Christ, the second Moses, leads his people out of bondage to sin and takes them all the way into the eschatological land of promise.” 

Now, just a few exegetical points here that are significant. That word for “servant” in verse 5 is very unusual. It’s the Greek word θεράπων. And this is the only occurrence of this word in the NT. Typically the word for servant in the Greek text is δοῦλος, which means “slave.” Also there’s the Greek διάκονος, which means “deacon” or more generally “one who serves.” 

But the author of Hebrews doesn’t call Moses a “slave” (δοῦλος), and he doesn’t call him a “deacon” (διάκονος). He calls him θεράπων. And probably the best way to translate this is “steward” or “attendant” or even “squire.” This was a designation of honor and esteem. Moses was a proud steward of God’s house. “But Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son.” And son trumps steward!

And not only does Jesus trump Moses as a son, he also trumps Moses as the one whom Moses testified concerning. Follow the argument here. Moses was faithful… to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. What’s that about? Well Moses said, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen” (Deut 18:15). Moses spoke a word about Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus was the Word that took on flesh and lived among us. He was a true and better prophet than Moses. He was a true and better mediator than Moses. He spoke a better Word than Moses. Moses rescued the people of God from God’s wrath temporally. Jesus rescued the people of God from God’s wrath eternally. 

And then the author says this. This is profoundly applicational. Look at the end of verse 6. 

And we are his house, 

We are in Jesus’s house. We are part of the Son’s kingdom. 

if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. 

Now that’s a big “if” right there. If we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. It’s amazing to me how this author just moves so quickly from “Jesus is better than Moses” to “Don’t you stop holding fast to Jesus.” I know it’s a little more sophisticated than that. But that’s the movement I see here. 

we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. 

Can I ask you church, what is our hope? Do you know? What is it that we boast in? “Boasting? Boasting is so tacky, Pastor Tony.” Yeah, it is. If you boast in the wrong things. If you boast in yourself, that’s tacky. If you boast in your political candidate… if you boast in someone other than Christ Jesus… yeah that is tacky. It’s not just tacky, it’s ludicrous.

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 1:31: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” That’s actually a quotation from Jeremiah 9:23-24 where Yahweh of the OT says, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” 

So that’s our boasting. What’s our hope? Our hope is the return of Christ. Our hope is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Our hope is new bodies, and a new Jerusalem, and a new inheritance with Christ Jesus. If we hold fast to that, then says the author of Hebrews, we are in Christ’s house. 

Now this brings us to something I’ve talked about already—the perseverance of the saints. The author of Hebrews says “if.” He says “If we hold fast…” Charles Spurgeon said once, “None are truly Christ’s but those who persevere in grace. Men may be nominally Christ’s, but they are not Christ’s house unless they hold fast to the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. Temporary Christians are not really Christians… Perseverance—final perseverance—is the test of election. He whom God has chosen holds on and holds out even to the end, while temporary professors make only a fair show in the flesh, but, by-and-by, their faith vanishes away.” 

“Can a person lose their salvation, Pastor Tony?” No, I don’t think so. If you have been truly regenerated, if you have been truly born again, you can’t be “unborn” again. Paul says in Ephesians 1:13, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” If you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, you can’t become “unsealed.” That’s not the idea that is being conveyed here. The idea is that someone who is saved, truly saved, will truly continue all the way to the end. 

Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31). To use the words of Hebrews here, those who are in the household of God, “hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.” Real Christians… legit Christians… born-again Christians… they hold fast.

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And speaking of holding fast. I was reminded this last week of the great second century bishop, a man named Polycarp. Polycarp was a bishop of Smyrna. He was actually a disciple of the apostle John. And those are some really impressive credentials in the second century world. And Polycarp had been a faithful Christian leader in the church for decades. He had even served into his eighties. He had been a Christian since he was a kid, but the Romans didn’t get around to persecuting him till he was in his eighties. 

And what the Romans did is they accused him of being an atheist, meaning he didn’t believe that Caesar was a god. And he wouldn’t bow the knee to Caesar or call him “lord.” He reserved that terminology and that gesture for the true Lord of the Universe. 

Well after Polycarp was arrested, he came before his accusers. And his accusers gave him a chance to recant. The magistrate said to him, “Swear the oath [to Caesar], and I will release thee; revile the Christ.” And Polycarp, old and gray, said, “Fourscore and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” So with that, his fate was sealed, and he was sentenced to be burned alive at the stake. 

And in fact, when they took his hands to nail them to the stake, he told them “Leave me as I am. For he who grants me to endure the fire will enable me also to remain on the pyre unmoved, without the security you desire from nails.” And so that’s what happened. They burned that old man to death because he wouldn’t renounce his faith. 

Look, I don’t know what’s going to take place in our world. Probably nobody in this church will be burned at the stake for their faith in Christ. I certainly don’t wish that fate on anyone. I’m not here to romanticize being burned at the stake for Jesus. But here’s my hope. Here’s my desire for you, and I assume this was the desire of the author of Hebrews to his audience. Whatever happens in this world, whatever happens to you and your family, hold fast to your confidence… Hold fast to your boasting… Hold fast to your hope as a saved follower of Jesus Christ.